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Best Casual Game of 2018 Nominees Announced - Vote For Your Favorite!
Submitted by Chris James on 01/11/2019 - 09:38. Category: News
The nominees have been announced for our 2nd annual Best Casual Game award! This award recognizes the most innovative, fun, and uniquely entertaining casual game published during the previous calendar year.
Last year's award resulted in a very close race — the winner by a razor thin margin was Sagrada by Floodgate Games, with Azul and Go Nuts for Donuts as the runners up. This year, we have another very tough race between three great games. So, let your voice be heard! Vote on your favorite below to influence the final award decision.
Best Casual Game of 2018 Nominees
A panel of 12 judges, consisting of popular media personalities in the game industry, has come together to nominate recipients for this award (the judges' names will be announced when the award is finalized). Nominations were considered based on gameplay, aesthetics, and originality. Each nomination was required to meet the following criteria:
After tallying the nominations, the top three games have been selected and voting is now underway! Here are the nominees, in alphabetical order. (Note: the publishers shown are the license holders for the U.S. editions of the game, not necessarily the original creators.)
Decrypto (IELLO) — "Players compete in two teams in Decrypto, with each trying to correctly interpret the coded messages presented to them by their teammates while cracking the codes they intercept from the opposing team. [...] Each team has their own screen, and in this screen they tuck four cards in pockets numbered 1-4, letting everyone on the same team see the words on these cards while hiding the words from the opposing team. [...] One team member takes a code card that shows three of the digits 1-4 in some order, e.g., 4-2-1. They then give a coded message that their teammates must use to guess this code." (Source: BGG)
The Mind (Pandasaurus Games) — "The Mind is more than just a game. It's an experiment, a journey, a team experience in which you can't exchange information, yet will become one to defeat all the levels of the game. [...] Collectively you must play [your] cards into the center of the table on a single discard pile in ascending order but you cannot communicate with one another in any way as to which cards you hold." (Source: BGG)
Welcome To... (Deep Water Games) — "As an architect in Welcome To..., you want to build the best new town in the United States of the 1950s by adding resources to a pool, hiring employees, and more. Welcome To... plays like a roll-and-write dice game in which you mark results on a score-sheet...but without dice. Instead you flip cards from three piles to make three different action sets with both a house number and a corresponding action from which everyone chooses one." (Source: BGG)
Vote For Your Favorite!
Which of these games would you choose? Vote below for your favorite pick. Voting closes at midnight MST on January 25, 2019.
YOU could influence the final decision! The winner of this public vote will be counted along with the votes from our panel of judges.
A panel of 12 judges, consisting of popular media personalities in the game industry, has come together to nominate recipients for this award (the judges' names will be announced when the award is finalized). Nominations were considered based on gameplay, aesthetics, and originality. Each nomination was required to meet the following criteria:
